Paranoia
by SonofUlti
Summary: This is just a regular creepypasta. There is no category for it, so AHS was the best I could do. It's still pretty creepy. Hope you enjoy.
Everyone has that eerie sensation some time in their life. Some are able to explain the phenomenon, while others can't. It's that feeling of someone, or something, watching you. It's that unknown experience when either dread or curiosity can get the best of you.

You could be quietly sitting at home, earbuds in, and immersed in your technology when it hits you. You look up from your phone to see your parents sitting, watching television; paying you no mind. Your siblings are sitting on the floor; drowned in a video game, but you find no reason for the feeling you just had. Some people brush it off, while others try to rationalize it. On rare occasions, some actually find the true answer.

It was a warm day in August, and I was quietly sitting at the window seat inside an internet café near my college campus. I had my music blaring in my ears to help drown out the busy customers while I vigorously worked on a research paper. It was close to the end of the semester, so the teacher were piling work on the students to stay on schedule.

After about an hour of staring at my laptop, I suddenly had the feeling of eyes on me.

Being in a pretty busy place, I didn't really give it much thought. I looked up and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. There were a few men sitting at a table, chatting, other college students making use of the free wifi, and a woman at the register getting her order taken. No eyes were on me, that is, until I looked closer at the woman. I hadn't looked down to see the little girl tightly wrapped around her leg; probably around three or four. She was looking at me from behind her mother's leg with a strange look on her face. It was hard to explain. Sort of a blank but frightening stare directly at me. She didn't look very well-dressed considering she was out in public. She had dirty brown hair that was matted down in random places, bare feet, and a white dress that was stained with dark colors, as if she had just finished playing in a flowerbed. I silently smiled at the young girl and waved. After getting no response, not even a change of facial expression, I shrugged and continued working on my laptop.

About a minute went by with the feeling of the little girl's eyes on me, I decided to look back up out of instinct, but she was gone. The mother was paying for her food as I quickly scanned the room for any sign of her daughter, as it appeared she didn't realize the girl was gone. After I noticed no signs of anyone younger than me, I quickly walked over to the woman and tried to explain that her daughter was missing. What she said next disturbed me:

"I'm sorry, but I came here alone."

"The little girl hugging your leg, she wasn't yours?"

"Um, no. There was no one on my leg."

The cashier confirmed that she came in alone. Shocked, I apologized and slowly walked back to my seat. I had noticed the girl in too much detail; how could no one else have seen that? After being certain the girl was not in the building, I started to rationalize it as just being a daydream that seemed to slip into my reality. I mean, I had been staying up late worried about this paper. I regained my composure and decided to just put it in the back of my mind for now.

About thirty minutes went by before the feeling came back. I tried for as long as I could to ignore it, hoping the feeling was just my nerves, but the longer I waited, the worse it got. Eventually, I couldn't take it. I snapped my head up and immediately I was face to face with the brown-headed girl from before. She was now in the seat directly across from me staring with that fearful look in her eyes. I let out a scream as I tumbled to the ground. I broke the gaze for just a moment to catch myself, but when I looked back up, she was gone once again. The only eyes on me were those of everyone else in the café, and the girl was nowhere in sight. Being just as embarrassed as I was frightened, I grabbed my stuff and quickly walked out and back towards my dorm.

As I continued down the street, I was still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened, when I suddenly saw her again. She'd be across the road behind a light post, in the back seat of a passing car, even through a window in the back of a shop. She was constantly staring at me, and I just had this feeling she wanted something. A feeling of dread swept over me as I began to sprint and keep my eyes focused on my path to safety. Luckily, I made it back to my dorm without another sighting and the feeling was long gone. Exhausted from my adrenaline rush, I fell asleep right away.

The next day, I woke up to the sound of beating on my door. As I opened it, i was confronted by two police officers. They told me to come with them to the station for questioning. Apparently a man had been arrested right outside the café I was in the evening before. They told me that a group of kids were walking down the sidewalk when they noticed the man sitting in his parked car and fully focused on the restaurant with a large camera. The kids slowly walked by and peered inside his car. Behind the passenger's seat, they could plainly see some nylon rope, a large roll of saran wrap, and the glistening of a large butcher's knife. They quickly walked off and called the police to investigate.

When they arrived, police found the objects, took the man's camera, and shortly after, took him in for questioning. The man had apparently been taking pictures all day of girls walking down the street and in the restaurant. The police took out the camera the man had and flipped through some of the man's final pictures. My heart sank as they flipped through multiple pictures of me sitting on my laptop, getting up to talk to the woman at the register, falling out of my chair, and leaving the restaurant. Those were the last photos he had taken before he was caught, and they suspected I was going to be his next victim. They asked about me falling out of my chair, and that's when I revealed the events containing the little girl. I thought they would think I was crazy, but after describing her, the police chief's face went white.

They told me they found out that the man had just recently been released from prison after serving a 25-year sentence for the kidnapping and murder of over a dozen women ranging from thirty-years-old all the way down to a three-year-old child being his last victim. They showed me an old newspaper clipping from the man's file that had a picture of the little girl, and after seeing it, a new feeling arose. This time, I didn't feel dread, but a sense of remorse, fear, and peace, all at once. The picture was taken sometime before her death, and she was standing barefoot in a field with long brown hair and a beautiful white dress.


End file.
